Irish house prices will outpace all Europe over next 2 years

December 27, 2017

Ireland’s house prices are rising strongly, mainly driven by strong demand as well as supply shortages. The national residential property price index rose by 7.75% (7.13% inflation-adjusted) during the year to October 2017, up on last year’s 5.53% y-o-y rise, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) Ireland.

This is supported by figures released by Ireland’s largest property website Daft.ie, whose data had nationwide average house prices surging 8.9% y-o-y in Q3 2017, up from an annual growth rate of 7.6% in Q3 2016.

In Dublin, Ireland’s capital city, the residential property price index was up by 8.42% (7.8% inflation-adjusted) during the year to October 2017, almost double the y-o-y growth of 4.46% in the same period last year, according to the CSO.

In Dublin City Centre, the average asking price skyrocketed by 17.4% to €306,574 (US$361,742), during the year to Q3 2017.

North Dublin City’s average asking price rose by 10.7% y-o-y to €325,635 (US$384,233).

North County Dublin’s average asking price rose by 9.6% y-o-y to €303,467 (US$).

South Dublin City’s average asking price rose by 8.8% y-o-y to €388,486 (US$458,394).

West County Dublin’s average asking price rose by 8.4% y-o-y to €299,726 (US$353,662).

South County Dublin’s average asking price rose by 6.1% y-o-y to €558,961 (US$659,546).

Local housing markets outside Dublin also continue to experience robust house price increases. Outside Dublin, average residential prices rose by 7.1% (6.49% inflation-adjusted) during the year to October 2017, according to the CSO Ireland. Based on Daft.ie’s figures:

In Carlow (located in Leinster, eastern Ireland), the average residential asking price was up 12% y-o-y to €175,488 (US$207,067) in Q3 2017.

In Cork County (located in Munster, in Ireland’s south), the average asking price rose by 8.8% y-o-y to €209,596 (US$247,313) in Q3 2017.

In Galway County (located in Connacht, Ireland’s western region), the average asking price rose by 8.6% y-o-y to €186,929 (US$220,567) in Q3 2017.

In Waterford City, the average asking price increased 6.7% y-o-y to €204,062 (US$240,783) in Q3 2017.

In Limerick City, the average asking price rose by 8.6% y-o-y to €177,771 (US$209,761) in Q3 2017.

In Monaghan (located in Ulster, in the Republic of Ireland’s north), the average asking price rose by 12.4% y-o-y to €163,719 (US$193,180) in Q3 2017.

Apartment prices in Ireland rose by 9.9% during the year to October 2017 (9.3% inflation-adjusted); house prices rose by 7.6% y-o-y (7% inflation-adjusted) over the same period.

House prices in Ireland are forecast to rise at the fastest pace in Europe over the next two years, according to the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. S&P expects Irish house prices to rise by 8.5% this year and by another 7% in 2018, amidst a strong labour market and housing supply shortages in key areas, particularly in Dublin.

In Q3 2017, the Irish economy posted stellar annual growth of 10.5%, up from 5.8% in Q2 2017 and 5.6% in Q1 2017, according to the CSO. The economy expanded by 5.1% in 2016, a massive 25.5% in 2015 (largely a fictitious figure), and 8.3% in 2014.

Ireland’s housing cycle

From 1996 to 2006 Ireland experienced a massive house price boom, with average used home prices up 383%, and new house prices up 284%. Ireland’s decade-long house price boom was one of the longest and biggest in Europe.

The Irish housing boom was fuelled by strong economic growth, immigration, and generous tax incentives and grants from the government, creating a virtuous cycle of economic growth and house price increases. Low interest rates and loose credit conditions provided financing.

HOUSE PRICE CHANGES

1996-2006

2007-2012

2013-2016

New

Existing

New

Existing

New

Existing

IRELAND

284%

383%

-33%

-36%

43%

16%

Dublin

361%

453%

-45%

-38%

47%

10%

Cork

271%

403%

-27%

-43%

37%

20%

Galway

234%

291%

-27%

-39%

0.8%

12%

Limerick

252%

267%

-19%

-36%

-1.2%

8%

Waterford

305%

365%

-38%

-44%

74%

22%

Others

271%

341%

-29%

-41%

30%

18%

Source: DoECLG

When the bubble burst in 2008, it was Europe’s biggest property bust. The downturn began in 2006 and 2007, when interest rate hikes left many borrowers in difficulty, causing a housing market crash. The 2006-2007 U.S. subprime mortgage crisis added to the downturn.

Ireland’s house prices fell by an average of 53% from the peak, compared to the typical OECD fall of 23%:

In 2008, the residential property price index fell 12.4% (-13.4% inflation-adjusted) from a year earlier.

In 2009, house prices fell 18.6% (-14.3% inflation-adjusted) from a year earlier.

In 2010, house prices fell 10.5% (-11.6% inflation-adjusted) from a year earlier.

In 2011, house prices plunged 16.7% (-18.7% inflation-adjusted) from a year earlier.

In 2012, house prices dropped 4.5% (-5.7% inflation-adjusted) from a year earlier.

The Irish housing market started to recover in 2013, with house prices rising by 6.4% (6.2% inflation-adjusted). The dramatic house price surge in 2014 of 16.3% (16.6% inflation-adjusted) was mainly due to the recovery of the Irish economy, which expanded by 8.3% in 2014, up from growth of only 1.4% in 2013 and 0.2% in 2012.

In an attempt to prevent another housing bubble from happening, the central bank implemented new rules in January 2015, which limited loan-to-value ratios on houses priced over €220,000 and on 2nd purchases to 80%, and 70% on buy-to-let purchases. Loans for private dwelling homes were also limited to 3.5 times gross income.

Despite this, house prices continued to increase strongly, supported by resilient demand as well as supply shortages. House prices increased 6.6% (6.6% inflation-adjusted) in 2015 and by another 6% (6% inflation-adjusted) in 2016.

Demand continues to rise

Demand has been continuously rising in the past six years. In 2016, the value of residential property transactions across Ireland rose by 13.8% to €12 billion (US$14.16 billion) from a year ago. Though, this is a slowdown from y-o-y increases of 15.5% in 2015, 57.4% in 2014, 19.1% in 2013, and 24.4% in 2012, according to the CSO.

During the first ten months of 2017, the value of residential property transactions stood at €10.42 billion (US$12.3 billion), up 12.6% from a year earlier. Over the same period:

In Dublin, which accounts for more than half of all transactions, transaction value increased 13.1% y-o-y to €5.46 billion (US$6.45 billion).

Interest rates remain low

The average interest rate for housing loans with maturity of up to 1 year was 3.08%, slightly up from 3.02% in the same period last year.

The average interest rate for housing loans with maturity of between 1 and 5 years was 3.43%, down from 3.85% a year ago.

The average interest rate for housing loans with maturity of over 5 years was 2.55%, down from 2.63% a year ago.

The European Central Bank (ECB)’s refinancing rate remained at zero in October 2017, unchanged since March 2016.

Interest rates on outstanding mortgages in Ireland have typically reflected movements in the ECB rate. However, during the past three years these rates have somewhat diverged, especially for housing loans with shorter maturity.

Central bank’s new lending cap

On January 27, 2015, the central bank introduced new regulations to limit mortgage lending in the country, in order to “increase the resilience of the banking and household sectors to the property market and to reduce the risk of bank credit and house price spirals from developing in the future”. The measures were subsequently reviewed in 2016 and 2017. Based on the review conducted by the central bank in November 2017, the following rules will be effective January 2018:

Loan to Value (LTV) limits for principal dwelling houses (PDH):

90% LTV limit on PDH mortgages of first time buyers

80% LTV limit on PDH mortgages of second and subsequent buyers

The limit can go beyond by only up to 5% of the euro value of the mortgage lending to first time buyers and up to 20% to second and subsequent buyers

LTV for Buy to Let mortgages (BLTs):

70% LTV limit on BTL mortgages

The limit can go beyond by only up to 10% of the euro value of all non PDH mortgages on an annual basis

Loan to Income (LTI) for PDH mortgages:

A limit of 3.5 times loan to gross income on PDH mortgage loans

The limit should not extend by over 20% of the euro value of all PDH mortgage loans during an annual period

Up to 20% of the value of new mortgages to first time buyers can be above the LTI cap; and up to 10% of the value of new mortgages to second and subsequent buyers can be above the LTI cap.

“We will continue to monitor developments through our annual cycle of reviews. We stand ready to adjust these borrower-based measures and/or other macro-prudential policy tools as may be appropriate to safeguard the long-term sustainability of Irish mortgage lending and the stability of the wider financial system,” said Central Bank of Ireland Governor Philip Lane.

Mortgage market continues to shrink

Ireland’s mortgage market continues to shrink, amidst the central bank’s mortgage lending measures. Residential mortgage lending fell to just 26.6% of GDP in 2016, from 29.4% in 2015, 40.2% in 2014 and 46.1% in 2013 and way below the peak of 64.5% of GDP in 2009.

Loans outstanding for house purchase increased by a modest 3.3% y-o-y to €76.33 billion (US$90.1 billion) in October 2017, according to the Central Bank of Ireland.

New housing loans with floating rate and up to one-year fixation fell by 14% y-o-y €478 million (US$564 million) in October 2017. In contrast, new housing loans with over one-year fixation surged 74% to €594 million (US$701 million) over the same period.

Rents surging, amidst limited supply

Ireland’s rent index surged 11.2% during the year to Q3 2017 to an average monthly rent of €1,198 (US$1,414), according to Daft.ie. Rents rose by 3.4% q-o-q in Q3 2017, the fourth largest quarterly rise ever recorded. The average nationwide rent has now risen by 61% since bottoming out in late 2011. In fact, it is already 16.4% higher than its 2008 peak.

In the country’s capital Dublin, rents rose by 12.3% y-o-y in Q3 2017 and are now about 22.8% above their previous peak.

In Dublin City Centre, the average rent was €1,819 (US$2,146), up by 15.5% during the year to Q3 2017.

In South County Dublin, the average rent increased 8.5% y-o-y to €1,955 (US$2,307).

In South Dublin City, the average rent rose by 11.1% y-o-y to €1,890 (US$2,230).

In West County Dublin, the average rent was up by 10.9% y-o-y to €1,551 (US$1,830).

In North County Dublin, the average rent rose by 12% y-o-y to €1,478 (US$1,744).

In North Dublin City, the average rent increased by 12.5% y-o-y to €1,659 (US$1,958).

Outside Dublin, rents rose by 10.1% during the year to Q3 2017, according to Daft.ie. Over the same period:

In Carlow, average rents were up by 11.5% y-o-y to €820 (US$).

In Cork City, average rents were up by 5.3% y-o-y to €1,144 (US$).

In Galway City, average rents rose by 9.8% y-o-y to €1,057 (US$).

In Limerick City, average rents increased by 10.9% y-o-y to €956 (US$).

In Waterford City, average rents rose by 8.5% y-o-y to €797 (US$).

In Monaghan, average rents rose by 9.8% y-o-y to €696 (US$).

Addressing the surge in rents (which have increased strongly for the past 21 consecutive quarters and consistently above 10% for six quarters in a row), Ronan Lyons of Daft.ie argued that the only viable solution is to increase the supply.

“And extra supply is quite simply the only solution. The country needs close to 50,000 homes a year to cater to underlying housing demand – both market and social. More than 15,000 rental homes are needed each year,” said Lyons.

The housing crash initially resulted in a huge expansion of the number of rental properties on the market, which rose dramatically to more than 23,400 in August 2009, from only 6,200 units in August 2007. By early-November 2017, there were fewer than 3,400 homes available to rent nationwide, down by more than 16% from the same period last year, according to Daft.ie. In Dublin, less than 1,300 properties were available for rent over the same period, down 13.6% a year ago.

Excellent yields on small apartments in Dublin

In Dublin centre, gross rental yields range from 2.4% to 12.9% in Q3 2017, according to Daft.ie. One-bedroom apartments earn yields of 6.6% to 12.9% while five-bedroom houses offer yields of just 2.4% to 4.7%. Dublin 10 has the highest rental yields nationwide, followed by Dublin 22, 24 and 17.

In other areas:

West County Dublin gross rental yields range from 3.7% to 10% in Q3 2017.

North County Dublin yields range from 3.5% to 9.5%.

South County Dublin yields range from 2.6% to 7.1%.

Cork City yields range from 3.3% to 10.6%.

Galway City yields range from 3.1% to 9.8%.

Limerick City gross rental yields range from 3.8% to 12.2%.

Waterford City gross rental yields range from 3.7% to 11.8%.

House building increasing, but still far below peak levels

Dwelling completions rose strongly by 27.7% to 15,062 units during the first ten months of 2017, as compared to the same period last year, according to the Environment, Community and Local Government. Likewise, dwelling permits surged 83.9% to 8,363 units over the same period. Despite these increases, housing construction is still unable to meet the huge demand.

During the boom, completions tripled to 93,000 units in 2006, up from 30,000 units in 1995. However, by 2011 completions had fallen to only 10,480 units. The decline continued for two more years, with only 8,488 dwelling completions in 2012, and 8,301 units in 2013.

Completions rose by 32.7% to 11,016 units in 2014, by 15% to 12,666 units in 2015, and by another 17.9% to 14,932 units in 2016. The country’s total housing stock was more than 2 million units last year.

Tax inversions artificially inflate Ireland’s economic growth

Ireland’s stellar economic growth for Q3 2017 has confounded expectations again, with official figures showing that real GDP expanded by 10.5% from a year earlier – almost double the 5.8% y-o-y growth recorded in the previous quarter. This was mainly driven by companies nominally relocating in the country, such as Perrigo Co. and Jazz Pharmaceuticals Plc. They are attracted by the country’s very open economy and by its relatively low tax inversion rate of 12.5%. These corporate inversions result in little real change in output, just a change in where the legal ownership of the output is located.

However, these growth numbers have downside risks. First, tax inversions only artificially inflate the size of Ireland’s economy. When a corporation’s headquarters become resident in Ireland, all of its profits (including profits generated abroad) are counted as part of the country’s gross national income – which dramatically increases the country’s economic growth without corresponding increases in employment. Also, this increases Ireland’s contribution to the EU budget, which is based on the size of a member’s economy. The growth figures are also misleading and will create confusion about the real condition of the Irish economy, and increase people’s skepticism with regards to the reliability of economic figures.

Nobel Prize award-winning economist Paul Krugman described a similar phenomenon as “Leprechaun economics”.

“Today’s national accounts for Ireland are once again remarkable for their volatility,” said Dermot O’Leary, an analyst at Goodbody. “This volatility is caused by the presence of large multinationals in Ireland, bringing about issues such as intellectual property imports and exports, royalties and contract manufacturing.”

The Irish economy expanded by 5.1% in 2016, after growths of 25.5% in 2015, 8.3% in 2014 and 1.6% in 2013, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Overall inflation was 0.5% in November 2017, up from -0.1% in the same period last year, according to CSO. Nationwide inflation rate is expected at 0.4% this year, an acceleration from -0.2% in 2016, -0.02% in 2015, and 0.3% in 2014, according to the IMF.

Unemployment dropped to 6.1% in November 2017, from 6.3% in the previous month and 7.5% a year earlier, according to the CSO. This is also substantially lower than the 13.3% average from 2009 to 2014. Ireland’s average unemployment rate was 4.4% between 2000 and 2007.

Budget deficit falling continuously

Ireland’s economy has been on an unusual journey over the past 6 years.

Ireland had the euro zone’s highest budget deficit in 2010, at 31.2% of GDP. In November 2010 it had no choice but to seek a €67.5 billion ($82 billion) bailout from the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In exchange, Ireland committed to a harsh austerity program.

The country spent around €80 billion to establish the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to buy toxic loans, primarily to improve the availability of credit to the Irish economy, and to remove non-performing loans from bank balance sheets.

In June 2012, 60.29% of Irish voters agreed to the European fiscal compact of May 31, 2012, allowing Ireland to access to the European Stability Mechanism, a €500 billion ($618 billion) bailout fund.

By 2011 the Irish budget deficit had fallen to 12.5%, and to 8% in 2012, comfortably within the 8.6% target set by Ireland’s international creditors: the EU, ECB and IMF. The budget deficit declined again to 5.7% of GDP in 2013. At end-2013 Ireland became the first country to exit the eurozone bailout programme.

In 2016, the budget deficit shrunk to 0.5% of GDP, down from 2% in 2015 and 3.7% in 2014, amidst strong economic growth and robust corporation tax payments.

The deficit is expected to fall further to 0.3% of GDP this year and to 0.2% in 2018, according to government estimates.

Likewise, gross public debt is expected to fall to 69.9% of GDP this year, from 72.8% of GDP in 2016, according to the European Commission.

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